Constitution & Bylaws

[Guest Joey Baer]

As our organization are working to clean up our cluttered Constitution, Bylaws and Guidelines. We came up with this question:

Is it really necessary to have both Constitution and Bylaws when it appears that both sections are very similar? One person pointed out that our constitution is really US Constitution which already outline our rights and others. And that we will need only Bylaws to describe our organization and Guidelines will elaborate the procedure of our operating practices.

However, other person pointed out that a constitution is the permanent document as such as top pyramid to recognize the common powerful sections or articles of the Bylaws which are hardly changed. "It is what it is made by"

Example: All the members who create an organization and its purposes and what its legal powers are; establishes qualifications for membership, membership duties; creates the basic structure as such as officers duties including sworn and functions of committees. "Who, Why, What, and Where"

"By-Laws" are simply the rules that govern the day to day functions of the various officers, committees, and members. It can be changed easily in articles or section of the Bylaws.

Rules and Guidelines can be changed by the officers and/or committees based the annual functions or actions of the organization as such as annual basketball rules.

We are trying to simplify our document. Please advise. Thank you in advance!

Joey

[hmtcastle]

Is it really necessary to have both Constitution and Bylaws when it appears that both sections are very similar?

No, and RONR suggests having just one (typically called "the bylaws" but you could also call it "the constitution and bylaws" even if it's a single document). The advantage is the avoidance of any conflict between two documents.

The only justification for having separate documents is if one (the constitution) is more difficult to amend than the other. So you'd have the carved-in-stone stuff in the constitution and the almost-carved-in-stone stuff in the bylaws.

[Tim Wynn]

A...

You might want to read RONR(10th ed.), p. 12-14. I think you'll find your answers there.